“Good afternoon, Sarah Ann,” sneered Lucas.
“Afternoon. How are you, Sarah Ann Martin?” Otto stepped in front of me. “Introduce us to your friends.”
Chapter 2
I glared at the men. How dare they ruin the only bright spot of the entire trip?
“Well?” Lucas said near my ear.
My anger turned to a web of fear. I could barely speak. “This is Emil…and…Karl, two friends of mine.” My voice sounded far away.
Emil and Karl stuck out their hands in good faith and in turn Lucas and Otto shook them.
“Your friends are ours,” said Lucas. He leaned toward my ear again. “Remember nothing, Sarah.” Then he strode down the deck and out of sight, followed by Otto quickly short-stepping behind, trying to keep up.
“Sarah Ann?” asked Emil. “What was that all about?”
I leaned against the wall for support. What could I say? Explaining could put my life in jeopardy.
“Well, who are they? And why do they call you Sarah Ann?” Emil stared at me. “And why am I suddenly just a friend?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try!”
“I met them walking on deck. They seemed forward, so I just told them the wrong name.” The words tumbled out too fast. I could see in Emil’s eyes he knew I was lying.
“A very smart thing to do, if you ask me,” bragged Karl. “A lady can never be too careful.”
I felt my spirits soar. He believed me! And no one had ever called me a lady before!
Emil glanced at my clenched fists and looked at my eyes. “But why are you so frightened?”
“They’re ugly characters!”
“Right,” said Karl. “Forget about them. Tell me what your father said about New Braunfels.”
I sighed and relaxed a little, but a twinge of guilt pulled at me. I had never lied to Emil before.
“We had one letter,” answered Emil.
“Does your Vater have a farm?”
“It was assigned, but there’s been no time to farm it,” Emil said.
“Vater only said he was a farmer to get a place on the boat,” I explained. “He’s really a music teacher.”
We talked of New Braunfels until we had to move to the shady side of the deckhouse. Then we talked about friends left in Germany. Karl told about the military service he disliked so much he left Germany. He spoke of family left behind and his hopes for adventure in unexplored Texas. Emil described his apprenticeship to a tailor and shared his hopes for opening a tailor shop in New Braunfels, where there were no trade guilds.
One of the American sailors called to Karl that we would soon be unloading at Indian Point.
Karl surveyed the shoreline. “Where’s Indian Point?” he asked the sailor.
“Can’t see it yet. The Naghel can’t go on into Indian Point because the water is too shallow. We stop in the bay outside the sandbar and wait for a small boat called a lighter to take our cargo across the shallow water to Indian Point.” The sailor ran off to his ropes.
Karl translated the information into German for us, and a crowd gathered around, requesting another translation.
Hands pointed to the west, and calls of “Land! Land!” echoed across the ship. Passengers gathered along the railing, peering into the sun’s dazzling reflection on the water for the first glimpse of the new land. When they saw the sandbar, cheers of joy went up and people danced around, hugging each other and hopping up and down. I was jostled and crowded, yet I had never felt so alone. I blotted my eyes with the handkerchief from my reticule and stood fingering the blue embroidered F and the lace ruffle on the linen.
“F-Freder—Rika, we’re here!” Sophie tugged at my skirt. When I looked at the joy on her face, I was surprised to feel at least a little thankful that the long trip was over and welcoming friends were near.
The next few hours were filled with hectic preparation for boarding the small lighter. Finally, families bunched together, surrounded by their trunks and satchels of belongings. Everyone watched silently as the first three families and their belongings were lowered onto the lighter and disappeared across the bright water into a small speck on the horizon.
As the lighter returned from the third trip, clouds covered the sun, and a sudden wind tossed the boat like a piece of paper. Sturdy arms strained at the oars, and the tillerman barked commands to keep it from swamping, and the little boat arrived back at the ship ready to take more of us ashore. The wind whipped my skirt and tangled my hair, and it plucked the handkerchief from my hand and sailed it high into the graying sky. I watched it disappear into the water while the crowd watched in silence. Was it an omen? The little knots of persons and their possessions pulled together tighter, daring the wind to take anyone or anything that belonged to them. Mutter, Sophie, and Emil pressed even closer to me.
“Mueller! Ikert! Kessler!” The names were barked into the wind.
“Mueller family, here!” called Emil.
I felt myself swept toward the gap in the ship’s rail. The Ikerts, who loaded first, were kept waiting on the lighter when the tillerman refused to take an animal. Herr Kessler argued with the captain about his cow. Any animal that could stand the trip from Galveston was by now a family pet, he said, and deserved to board with the family. Besides, he argued, did the captain actually want to keep a balky, seasick cow? Finally, the bawling cow was tugged to the rail, the sling put under her belly, and she was lowered to the small boat, her bawling carried away by the wind.
When it was our turn, we were lowered by a wildly swaying sling onto a thrashing boat. I swallowed hard to quiet my fearful, retching stomach.
Underway on the raft-like lighter, the wind grew warmer and less fierce, but cold waves washed over us again and again. I trembled and clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. Mutter’s eyes were closed, but her lips were moving. I closed my eyes to pray also, but such blackness engulfed me that I opened them again and stared into the stinging wet wind, afraid to blink.
After what seemed an eternity, the bay settled, and the sailors stopped rowing and rubbed their tired arms while only the tillerman kept a steady hand to guide the small boat. We and the other immigrants touched each other and wrung water out of clothing. People called reassurances to one another. Farmer Kessler examined his seasick, swaying cow, and his children reached up to pat her.
The oarsmen pointed to the fog bank ahead and argued among themselves. Finally, they began cadence counting—1-2…3-4…1-2…3-4—then dipped their oars again, and the little boat moved ahead into a fog bank.
“I’m scared!” Sophie turned loose of my hand and threw her arms around my waist.
I couldn’t say a word, but Emil said, “Don’t worry, little one, we’ll be there soon. Just think of Marianne there to greet you.”
Although I knew the fragile lighter was taking us toward land, when the curtain of fog closed in behind us, the world ceased to exist. It seemed like a dream. Only the rhythmic pitch of the lighter, the sound of water and the tightening grip of Sophie’s arms around my waist made the dream real. I sat frozen with fear until much later when the boat scraped sand and came to a sudden halt.
The oarsmen jumped into the water, and began the backbreaking job of unloading the Kesslers, their trunks, and the balky cow from the bobbing lighter. I heard the Ikerts slosh through the shallow water to safety, but when it was my turn to step over into the water, I felt that I’d rather die than take those last steps into Texas. When I did, the water was ankle deep and cold, and seeped down inside the clumsy brown shoes, making them even heavier.
When we were safely on dry land, the German oarsman explained that our crates left on the boat would be unloaded the next morning. He told us to camp well out of the incoming tidemark, wished us luck, and disappeared back into the fog.
Under Emil’s direction we opened the trunks and were soon set up under a low, makeshift canopy of sheets and spread dry sheets and pillows for sleeping. As the gray light turned to dark, in
silence we ate wet bread and the last hunk of cheese.
With darkness came thicker fog and air that was strangely heavy with a warmth I’d never felt in Germany, yet the sand beneath felt clammy and cold. Emil found his flint and lit a candle, giving a cheerful yellow glow to our strange, tiny tent. In tired voices tinged alternately with bitterness and hope we discussed what might have become of the Indian Point wharves and wondered why our friends hadn’t come to welcome us. But there were no answers.
Mutter, optimistic as usual, told us our questions would be answered tomorrow. The answers, she said, would be a pleasant surprise.
But she sighed with resignation even as she said it.
Sophie whined again and again, “Where are all the people?”
Finally Mutter yelled at her, “Go to sleep!”
Emil felt sorry for Sophie and started to explain once more that we didn’t know, but Mutter became angry with him and yelled at him to be quiet and go to sleep. Emil quietly left the lean-to without realizing that his slight movement made the candle flicker and go out.
I sat in the dark thinking. It had been years since Mutter sounded cross with good-natured Emil. A dark realization crept over me: Texas has a dreadful aura, one that makes us mean with each other. This awful place smells like fish. It’s so bad no one lives here—not even a person who could come down to meet us. Angrily I pounded my pillow. Sand flew into my mouth and gritted between my teeth. I wondered how any place could be more miserable.
As if in answer, I heard the faint buzz of a mosquito, then two, then three, then thousands that filled the sheet-tent with humming. I slapped at them wildly as they bit my arms and face relentlessly. “Mutter! Mutter!” I called. But mosquitoes flew into my mouth. I had to cover my nose to keep from breathing them.
Sophie scratched and cried hysterically until Mutter covered her from the top of her head to her toes with a sheet. Mutter sat very still hugging Sophie tightly, and I imagined the mosquitoes feeding on her, for I could hear her crying.
I’d heard Mutter cry only once—the night before Herr Dittman came to get the furniture to help finance the trip. I had watched from the shadows as Mutter walked from room to room, slowly running her soft hands over the smooth, oiled furniture, caressing each piece, saying good-bye to the treasures that had been part of her dowry. It had been a time of deep sadness and quiet tears.
I felt a great longing to flee from the sad memory and from the present terror and disappointment. With my hand I covered my mouth and called to the returning Emil, “Where can we go to get away from the mosquitoes?”
“No place. Everyone’s in trouble. And some of the families didn’t even get to shore.”
In the desperate dark came a guilty glimmer of hope. Perhaps Otto and Lucas had drowned.
But what about Karl?
Chapter 3
Laughing sounds awakened me the next morning, and I crept stiffly from the sheet-tent into the blinding sunshine to see who it was. Black-headed gulls with shimmering bodies circled then dipped to shore for small fish, laughing as they dived. Farther down the beach, brown shore birds wearing white bibs walked like miniature men on stilts in the shallow surf. Stiffly they tipped their beaks into the soft, white foam searching for breakfast.
Sparkling flat stretches of buff-colored sand, damp in the morning sunlight, caught the reflection of glassy, blue surf. Behind the flat beach, grasses and tiny yellow flowers bloomed on mounded dunes. My spirits soared. I had come to a wonderland, a picture from a fairytale. I stepped back into the tent and shook Emil’s shoulder.
His eyes opened slowly. “What’s the matter?”
“Shh.” I pointed to the exit. Emil got up slowly and followed me.
“I don’t believe it.” The bright blue water glistening in the sunshine made him shield his eyes. “How could it change just overnight?”
“It’s a miracle!” I burrowed my feet into the warming sand. “This feels good. Try it.”
Emil dug his feet in, then kicked dry sand into the air and walked the few feet to wet sand where the tide was going out. “See this little hole? A crab lives there.”
Just then a strange creature with many claws and a set of fierce-looking pincers came out of the hole and scampered sideways down the beach. I jumped back. “Does it bite?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Karl told me he caught them on the beach in Galveston.” Emil watched other crabs move down the beach. “Have you seen Karl this morning?”
“No. Maybe he’s down the beach. Lots of bundles and stacks down there, but no one’s awake.”
Emil pointed. “Look, something’s moving.”
“It’s the Kesslers’ cow!” I ran down the beach to the cow and threw my arms around her sandy neck. Suddenly, the Kesslers appeared from all directions, everyone talking at once. Frau Kessler asked about Mutter and Sophie, and we compared our frantic, mosquito-ridden night. In the midst of the happy confusion, the cow started to bawl. Herr Kessler found his milking bucket. Frau Kessler sent me back to get a pan for some milk, and as I walked past the milking, I heard Herr Kessler coo, “Oh, Wilma, you lovely creature. Oh, Wilma, you are a beautiful cow.”
I burst into the tent. “Herr Kessler is milking Wilma, and I need a pan from the trunk.”
Still wrapped like a mummy, Sophie tried to stand but fell over, helpless, until I unwound the sheet. “Sophie, look outside. It’s so beautiful you won’t believe it.” She took off running into the shallow water, laughing with glee every time she frightened a group of shore birds into flight.
“Mutter, are you all right?”
She looked pale and had dark smudges under her eyes, and the red welts on her face and arms were swollen and inflamed. The usually neat bun of blond hair at the back of her head had come loose and long strands hung around her shoulders and shorter wisps clung to her face. She had lost weight from seasickness, and this morning her damp, oversize clothes hung limply against her.
Mutter’s eyes met mine for a long second. “Oh, yes, Rika, I’m fine.” She continued searching the trunk for a pan. “Although I do believe the mosquitoes have more blood this morning than I do.” She handed me the pan. “Please tell Wilma she is beautiful, and I love her.”
“What about Frau Kessler?”
“Tell her I’ll come calling as soon as I’ve had a bath and cleaned the house.” Walking down the beach with the pan I felt an unexplainable pride in my optimistic Mutter.
It looked like mass confusion that morning, but when I wrote about it later in my diary I found that it did have a sense of order. Mutter washed her face in seawater, stoically enduring the sting of the salt against the raw mosquito bites. Only after she brushed and coiled her long blond hair, straightened her blouse and skirt, and read her morning passages from the Bible did she close the second trunk and make her way with dignity down the beach to thank Frau Kessler for the milk.
Emil returned with the news that we should move south and eastward down the beach to Indian Point; that, he said, was less than a mile. We suddenly became giddy with optimism and gladly blamed the fog for our misadventure on the beach. I couldn’t wait for civilization. Houses with windows, welcoming open doors, and friends from Germany would reassure me that Texas wouldn’t be as bad as I had dreaded. I wondered if Karl was among the seven families camped along the beach toward Indian Point.
Mutter was optimistic. “Such a fine, handsome young soldier surely knows how to care for himself. Why, he’s so handsome I’ll bet he is already eating a fat breakfast with some beautiful lady who spied him on the beach.”
“Sorry, Sis.” Emil grinned. “You may have to stand in line to talk to him.”
“Who said I wanted to talk to him?”
“Well, you’re worried about him,” said Emil.
It was true. I couldn’t stop thinking about him even in the flurry of activity to leave for Indian Point.
The long walk to Indian Point became festive as other families joined u
s along the way, calling greetings and encouragement. As our numbers grew to nearly forty, we collected explanations for the miserable arrival and lack of welcome. Expectantly we walked faster and faster.
At first Indian Point was just a speck in the distance; then it grew to lumps and heaps resembling buildings. But as we walked down the town’s one beachfront street, I was puzzled and dismayed. Then a gnawing fear took over. Hundreds of tents and sod houses, some with brush roofs, some with no roofs, some partially made of scrap wood, huddled along the beach, looking like they grew close together for protection. Between the houses stood skeletons of rusty farm machinery, stoves, and rusty buckets. Occasionally a thin, unkempt child waved from the doorway, but there were no welcoming calls, no invitations to celebrate our arrival. I studied each makeshift doorway looking for Marianne. Sophie darted toward a child she mistook for Chris, but the child silently fled into a dark hut. Stunned by the sight of shacks and tents and the unfriendliness and lack of activity in the town, we walked slowly and silently on.
At the end of the main street, the business section looked as unkempt and disappointing as the huts and dwelling tents. Various large business tents displayed crudely lettered signs offering everything from clothing to harness to home-cooked meals. Even the H. Runge and Company, Bank sign was roughhewn and hung over a sagging tent. We reached a large square wooden building bearing a sign ADELSVEREIN and poured inside to escape the scorching sun.
Adelsverein, the sponsoring society of German states who had planned the settlement of central Texas, made many promises to us before we left Germany. Inside the building we hoped to find these promises fulfilled or to find answers to questions about our arrival and cold reception at Indian Point. Herr Kessler, followed by his family and our family, boldly led his precious cow through the door and to the front of what looked like a meeting hall, where two officials sat behind a table. When no one spoke, Herr Kessler announced himself and the arrival of the sloop cutter Naghel. Reluctantly, the larger of the two men rose and told the group that other immigrants from the sloop had landed on the other side of Indian Point and were already headed for the pier, where their crates would be unloaded.
The Long Road Home Romance Collection Page 41